Book Reviews

Survive the Night by Riley Sager

Bless the library. I was having a day, got an email that one of my holds came in, and decided to treat myself to a walk through the aisles to see what else was available. I left with Carrie Soto, Survive the Night, and a couple more (keep an eye on the blog!).

The Story

Charlie Jordan is being driven across the country by a serial killer. Maybe.

Behind the wheel is Josh Baxter, a stranger Charlie met by the college ride share board, who also has a good reason for leaving university in the middle of term. On the road they share their stories, carefully avoiding the subject dominating the news – the Campus Killer, who’s tied up and stabbed three students in the span of a year, has just struck again.

Travelling the lengthy journey between university and their final destination, Charlie begins to notice discrepancies in Josh’s story.

As she begins to plan her escape from the man she is becoming certain is the killer, she starts to suspect that Josh knows exactly what she’s thinking.

Meaning that she could very well end up as his next victim.

My Thoughts

I do my best to rank authors’ books against each other. Of course, I compare them to other books that I’ve read, but I do try and rank them as I read them. Thus, Survive the Night was compared to Home After Dark (not great) and The House Across the Lake (I loved it). It fell somewhere in between.

This one was a hard one to diagnose as to why I didn’t love it though. I had a hard time with the lead character being portrayed as a hysterical young woman (though that was slightly rectified in the end). It tended to drag with a lot of back and forth of “Is it? Isn’t it?”

I have since read another Sager novel (thoughts to come), and I feel I have a good grasp of his writing style. A little long in parts, but a twist that mostly makes it worth it in the end. There’s also a bit of violence, but not a ton of gore. It’s an enjoyable writing style, and the books have enough variety that I don’t necessarily feel like I’m reading the same novel over and over.

If you’re looking for a fun beach read or vacation read or even a plane read, I’d definitely encourage you to pick up Survive the Night.

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